Red was the dominant colour on the first day of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, courtesy of the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc who were clearly the fastest men on track. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers what teams had to say after the opening day at Baku.

McLaren

“A mixed day. The pace is there but it hasn’t been the easiest to extract it. We had an issue in FP1, but the team did a great job to get us back out on track. We tried a few things in FP2 which seemed to keep us progressing. We’ll see what we can change this evening to keep us on that track. Still a lot of positives from the day so looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow.”

"A bit frustrating to have made that small but costly mistake, but I’d rather push and find the limits, than not get anywhere near. The day was going well until then and the car felt good, so we’re still in a reasonable place. The competition is looking close, but we’ll do what we can heading into Saturday.”

Ferrari

"I think there’s more potential this weekend. I did a solid job today, but I want to extract more. Our competitors seem to be very strong and I expect to see some surprises in qualifying tomorrow, but anything can happen on this track, so we will see what’s on the cards. We’ll fight for a good starting position tomorrow."

Lewis Hamilton - FP1: 1:44.087, P13; FP2: 1:41.293, P1

"Overall, it was a constructive day. The first session was challenging as I needed to get used to the brakes, but we made some good changes for FP2. The car felt much better, everything started to come together, and my confidence grew lap by lap.

"It was really positive to have such a strong second session, probably my best FP2 of the year so far, and shows the progress we’re making. There are still a few areas we can improve for tomorrow, but I believe we’re moving in the right direction."

Mercedes

"That was an encouraging Friday for us here in Azerbaijan. We opted to complete our programme on the Soft compound only today and that made judging our overall limitations a little more tricky than usual.

"It is a long lap in Baku and the rear tyres are often suffering, particularly in the final sector. With the softest compounds in the range being used here, we knew the C6 would struggle to hold on throughout. With that said, we still ended the day in the top four in both sessions and know we’ve still got further improvements we can make.

"We also carry all our sets of the C5 Medium tyre into the rest of the weekend, and we hope that will be an advantage for us over some of our competitors.

"I am now looking forward to resting up tonight, getting back to 100 per cent, and coming back strong for the rest of the weekend. We know it will once again be tight with our competitors, with Ferrari looking impressive and McLaren not yet showing their hand. If we can build on today though, then there’s no reason we can’t be in the fight for the podium on race day."

"We had a pretty positive day out there. As it’s a street circuit, you want to build up your pace and confidence over several sessions and that is what I was focused on doing. We had a big interruption to FP1 which cost everyone some track running, but the car felt good in FP2 and that put us P4 on the timing screens. There is still work for us to do and improvements for us to find but today was a day we can build on going into the rest of the weekend.

"Our realistic aim is to be in the fight for the podium on Sunday. McLaren couldn’t show their full pace today and Ferrari looked quick on both the Soft and Medium compounds, so we’re not getting carried away. We opted to only run the Soft tyre today and hopefully that helps over the rest of the weekend. It will be tricky adjusting to the other compounds when we first run them but we’re confident that this is the right approach."

Red Bull

“It wasn’t too bad today. Building up to it, the car felt quite good which was positive for us. We found a stable balance and this needs to be quite particular for the layout of this track. Everything needs to come together to produce a good lap and we are still working to find more on the one lap and to gain more confidence.

"We are fine tuning little bits and hopefully tomorrow the car will be better. The long runs felt okay, it is always going to be slippery around here and tough on the tyres with the softer compounds, but it is not too bad.

"Ferrari are always pretty fast around here and I do expect a few things to be close. It will all come down to driving a perfect lap in Qualifying or getting your tyres in a good window. With such a long straight you can get lucky with a tow as well."

"Driving here in Baku is always a little bit different, so it's important to get as much information from each session. Overall, it was a good day. In the short run there is some room to improve but it's good that we're experiencing it on Friday so we can perform well tomorrow.

"In FP2, we mainly focussed on the long runs and that felt a lot better and I haven't had that feeling a lot this year. The car is making sense so far which is a real positive and lap by lap we're getting there. We're going to stay positive, keep going in the right direction and see what we can do tomorrow."

Williams

"Today was about tyre learnings. First thing was to get on top of our programme for this weekend and trying to find the middle ground in terms of what’s optimal for the car and what’s optimal over one lap. I think we’re in a good flow right now, I'm happy with the car and I'm happy with the balance.

+Although I would like it to stay dry for the rest of the weekend. If there’s rain or weather tomorrow it puts us in a bit more of an unknown side, at the same time, it might make us even quicker. But for the most part, I think we've been in a good rhythm from FP1 and continued it into FP2."

"Interesting day for us today. FP1 was quite messy and we were caught out constantly by yellow flags. FP2 however was a better session and I’m happy with our long runs.

"We seem to struggle again with the softer compound so we need to keep looking for something more for Quali. I think tomorrow the Soft and Medium tyres are going to be extremely close, so we might see different approaches and this will spice things up in Qualifying."

Racing Bulls

“It didn’t feel great out there today. I’ve been struggling to find the limits of the car, it’s still very inconsistent, and my own driving needs work as well, especially in Sector 2.

"I have a clear idea of the changes I want to make to the car setup and the areas I need to improve on my side. I’m feeling quite confident for tomorrow, and hopefully we can reach Q3.”

"It's been a good day for us. I haven't raced here in a few years and it feels very different to what I remember in F2. I think they did a great job at cleaning the track this weekend as it has good grip from the outset so we're driving a little faster than Qualifying times.

"We always aim to be in the top ten each weekend, so it of course feels good to be there at the end of FP2. The consistency of the car has been very strong recently, so we need to continue to chase the small margins."

Haas

“From FP1, we saw that the grip was pretty decent, and we’ve tried a lot of things across the cars, so now we need to choose what’s best out there for tomorrow. I see some areas we’re lacking, but in corners we look pretty decent.

"Looking ahead to qualifying we split who ran which tyre in FP2, I ran on softs while Ollie used mediums, and now we need to look into the data and see what our engineers say as to which option is best.”

“The lap time was very good and we’ve had a good car all day, honestly. We were struggling a bit with top speed in FP1, but we improved that in FP2 and now we look to be in the fight. I’ve had a good feeling with the car, which is the most important thing, so now we need to work overnight to make sure we get everything together for qualifying.”

Kick Sauber

“It was a classic Friday - nothing out of the ordinary. We ran through our programme, focused on understanding the way to optimise our car’s balance and on where we can improve. Looking at the lap times, there’s still some work to do, but overall, it was a solid baseline to build on. Now it’s about fine-tuning things ahead of the next two days.”

“Overall, it was a decent day, despite the tricky conditions. Several drivers went straight into the run-off – I had a couple of those moments too – but that’s just part of pushing to the edge. As a positive, we learned a lot about our limits, and that gives us something solid to build on ahead of Quali. I’m feeling good about the work we can do tonight and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can achieve tomorrow.”

Aston Martin

"It's always a fun challenge around this tight and fast circuit.

"Looking at the lap-times it appears we still have some pace to find this weekend. You need to balance downforce and drag at this track and that's where we need to improve. Let's see what we can find overnight."

"We were getting some good laps in throughout both practice sessions today and collecting information to help in Qualifying tomorrow and for the race. Weather conditions are meant to be quite windy, so we'll have to see how that impacts our performance tomorrow in Qualifying."

Alpine

“This is definitely one of those tracks which gets your attention right from the very first lap. It is a place where you need to have some patience and build up the speed and confidence bit by bit, especially the first few laps when the track is not in its best shape. Still, it is a real thrill with such high-speed. It is not an easy track for us and we knew that going into the race weekend.

"We know what we need to work on and we will try and optimise what we have in our hands. Today we tried different set-ups and different wing levels to see what the best direction is to take. I think we have found the areas to work on so we will aim to find improvements in Free Practice 3 ahead of Qualifying.”

Franco Colapinto - FP1: 1:45.299, P19; FP2: 1:43.322, P20
“It was nice to get back out there today on a track which brings me fond memories from last year. The circuit gives you a good feeling behind the wheel and, similar to other street tracks, it's somewhere you need to build up and not take too much risk on a Friday. We put in some clean laps and have a lot of data to go through tonight to be prepared for Qualifying, which will be the focus to peak at the right time.

"It was tricky out there today with some stoppages and yellow flags and we still have work to do to find more performance. There were some interesting differences up and down the grid in terms of tyre strategy for a single lap, so let's see how things pan out tomorrow.”